We are hurtling towards the mid-point in the \u201cselling- season\u201d and as all my clients will confirm at this time of year, I always urge maximum effort: I do not like the \u201chockey stick\u201d syndrome; you know the one that dictates that we close the most business in the last month of the quarter, or the last quarter of the year.<\/p>\n
My preference is to get ahead of the numbers as early as possible, and to come out of the traps flying. There is no room on my teams for those who want to spend the first few months of the New Year either reflecting on their success or worrying about their disappointments from the previous year.<\/p>\n
In sales, as in sport, you are only as good as your next victory!<\/p>\n
But it takes courage, and a real sense of realism to focus in on what is probable \u2013 not just possible!<\/p>\n
This is not a time to be optimistic. We need realistic.<\/strong><\/p>\n You can\u2019t manage what you can\u2019t measure, and if you can\u2019t measure your pipeline, then you can\u2019t improve your productivity. There are a number of Key Performance Indicators (KPI\u2019s) that can be measured, monitored and managed to ensure achievement of sales targets:<\/p>\n KPI\u2019s<\/strong><\/p>\n Pipeline Opportunities<\/strong> \u2013 These should be measured in value and the number of opportunities in the pipeline.<\/p>\n Opportunities by Milestone<\/strong> \u2013 Once these milestones and their different probabilities of closing have been calculated, these figures ensure greater accuracy of forecasting.<\/p>\n Average Deal Size<\/strong> \u2013 This ensures better focus on larger deals and ideally will increase steadily each year.<\/p>\n Sales Cycle Time<\/strong> \u2013 Shortening this can have a huge impact because of the cumulative saved time available for prospecting.<\/p>\n Profitability<\/strong> \u2013 Margins can be tracked to ensure that there is sufficient contribution to enable ongoing account handling.<\/p>\n Conversion Ratio<\/strong> \u2013 The number of opportunities won, and the % of pipeline potential converted.<\/p>\n Finally, do remember that there are no prizes for having an overly pregnant pipeline \u2013 the prizes are reserved for closed business, and for the winners!<\/p>\n The reality is that for a number of reasons, 30% of the opportunities currently residing in your pipeline will not happen \u2013 do you know which ones they are?<\/p>\n If you weed them out early, you will give yourself so much more time to work on those that will happen.<\/p>\n\t Copyright \u00a9 2020 by Jonathan Farrington All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission of the author.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Most companies are looking for ways to more effectively and efficiently manage their most important business relationships. It is not easy to do, and it is not always enjoyable, but when a key account works well, it is extremely satisfying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":167,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1120],"tags":[1035,1386,1229],"class_list":["post-12342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-management","tag-research","tag-sales-pipeline"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n